S
Shoshanna Green
Version: 2008; operating system: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard); processor:
PowerPC
I was referred here from another support list, because the expert
advising me there suggested that I might have complicated subtle font
problems; I am very grateful for any advice! This message is long,
because several things are going on and I've tried several solutions.
I routinely work with six or so Word files open, half of which have
Track Changes turned on. I recently installed Word 2008 (upgrading
from Word X), and have been having strange problems. When I select a
group of files in the Finder and open them, the active window often
ends up behind an inactive one. (I can hit Page Down and watch the
scroll bar move down in the window behind the one I'm looking at,
where it peeks out from under!) Hitting command-` to activate each in
turn may or may not bring the newly active window to the front. If I
hit command-tab twice to move to another program and back, the active
window is on top when I return to Word, but that usually lasts only
until I hit command-` again, whereupon the window that activates is
under an inactive one again. If I manually arrange windows so that
none overlap, of course, this problem doesn't hinder my work, but
that's hard to do with six or seven windows!
I have deleted Office 2008 and its preferences, rebooted in Safe Mode,
and reinstalled Office 2008 and all its updates. With the desktop
running in Safe Mode and with Word the only running app (besides the
Finder), I continued to see all this behavior. I rebooted normally,
since Safe Mode didn't seem to help.
Also, Word was painfully slow. Select seven Word files in the Finder,
hit command-O, wait...wait...windows flicker...wait...more
flicker...wait. Paste a chunk of text, and it would be a couple of
beats before the cursor reappeared and Word could accept input again.
It was suggested that I had font problems, so I went to Font Book to
validate, remove duplicates, and deactivate a bunch of unneeded fonts.
This turned up some strangeness. After a round of validation (there
were no major errors reported at any time) and duplicate-resolving,
validating fonts now returns no major errors and only three minor
errors, which it lists as duplicates of Times.dfont in Bold, Italic,
and Bold Italic. Font Book shows only one of each form of Times turned
on, but the error is reported anyway; selecting all the instances of
Times (everything under the "Times" that has the flippy arrow) in Font
Book and hitting command-R to locate them shows Times (the one turned
off) in ~/Library/Fonts and Times.dfont (the one turned on) in /System/
Library/Fonts. Selecting the whole family (the word "Times" with the
flippy arrow) and choosing Resolve Duplicates turned off both Regular
forms (which validation had *not* reported as a problem; one was
already off) and also selected and apparently turned off the Webdings
and Wide Latin fonts at the same time, lower in the list, which were
already off anyway. Selecting the Times family again and validating
again told me that Times is OK but Times.dfont contains (if I click
its flippy arrow in the Font Validation window), as well as a slew of
NFNT #### (various numbers), a Times Bold, Times Italic, and Times
Bold Italic that are marked as duplicates. Again, this is immediately
after I selected the Times family and ran Resolve Duplicates. I have
no idea how to resolve these duplicates, or what they could be
duplicates of! And I know I'm not supposed to muck around with /System/
Library/Fonts/Times.dfont.
(As I described above, several times when I selected a font in Font
Book and hit command-shift-D to deactivate it, it and several other
fonts would all highlight and deactivate as a group...weird.)
I have now deactivated many fonts that I don't need; I was careful to
never deactivate one I use, or one that the system warned me against
deactivating. Although Word is now faster, I do still see a noticeable
delay after selecting text and hitting command-C; doing that often
makes the whole window scroll a line, too, which is very weird, having
the text suddenly jump like that. And there's a new oddness; I
frequently insert footnotes as I work, and sometimes Word will stop
responding to keyboard input, both after the note reference has been
inserted and the note window has opened up for me to type in -- but I
can't -- and after I've finished typing it and closed the footnote
window. The cursor usually doesn't blink, but sometimes it does;
either way, the only way to make Word register my typing again is to
switch to another app and then back. And the active window still tends
to end up under an inactive window.
I would be extremely grateful for suggestions and advice!
PowerPC
I was referred here from another support list, because the expert
advising me there suggested that I might have complicated subtle font
problems; I am very grateful for any advice! This message is long,
because several things are going on and I've tried several solutions.
I routinely work with six or so Word files open, half of which have
Track Changes turned on. I recently installed Word 2008 (upgrading
from Word X), and have been having strange problems. When I select a
group of files in the Finder and open them, the active window often
ends up behind an inactive one. (I can hit Page Down and watch the
scroll bar move down in the window behind the one I'm looking at,
where it peeks out from under!) Hitting command-` to activate each in
turn may or may not bring the newly active window to the front. If I
hit command-tab twice to move to another program and back, the active
window is on top when I return to Word, but that usually lasts only
until I hit command-` again, whereupon the window that activates is
under an inactive one again. If I manually arrange windows so that
none overlap, of course, this problem doesn't hinder my work, but
that's hard to do with six or seven windows!
I have deleted Office 2008 and its preferences, rebooted in Safe Mode,
and reinstalled Office 2008 and all its updates. With the desktop
running in Safe Mode and with Word the only running app (besides the
Finder), I continued to see all this behavior. I rebooted normally,
since Safe Mode didn't seem to help.
Also, Word was painfully slow. Select seven Word files in the Finder,
hit command-O, wait...wait...windows flicker...wait...more
flicker...wait. Paste a chunk of text, and it would be a couple of
beats before the cursor reappeared and Word could accept input again.
It was suggested that I had font problems, so I went to Font Book to
validate, remove duplicates, and deactivate a bunch of unneeded fonts.
This turned up some strangeness. After a round of validation (there
were no major errors reported at any time) and duplicate-resolving,
validating fonts now returns no major errors and only three minor
errors, which it lists as duplicates of Times.dfont in Bold, Italic,
and Bold Italic. Font Book shows only one of each form of Times turned
on, but the error is reported anyway; selecting all the instances of
Times (everything under the "Times" that has the flippy arrow) in Font
Book and hitting command-R to locate them shows Times (the one turned
off) in ~/Library/Fonts and Times.dfont (the one turned on) in /System/
Library/Fonts. Selecting the whole family (the word "Times" with the
flippy arrow) and choosing Resolve Duplicates turned off both Regular
forms (which validation had *not* reported as a problem; one was
already off) and also selected and apparently turned off the Webdings
and Wide Latin fonts at the same time, lower in the list, which were
already off anyway. Selecting the Times family again and validating
again told me that Times is OK but Times.dfont contains (if I click
its flippy arrow in the Font Validation window), as well as a slew of
NFNT #### (various numbers), a Times Bold, Times Italic, and Times
Bold Italic that are marked as duplicates. Again, this is immediately
after I selected the Times family and ran Resolve Duplicates. I have
no idea how to resolve these duplicates, or what they could be
duplicates of! And I know I'm not supposed to muck around with /System/
Library/Fonts/Times.dfont.
(As I described above, several times when I selected a font in Font
Book and hit command-shift-D to deactivate it, it and several other
fonts would all highlight and deactivate as a group...weird.)
I have now deactivated many fonts that I don't need; I was careful to
never deactivate one I use, or one that the system warned me against
deactivating. Although Word is now faster, I do still see a noticeable
delay after selecting text and hitting command-C; doing that often
makes the whole window scroll a line, too, which is very weird, having
the text suddenly jump like that. And there's a new oddness; I
frequently insert footnotes as I work, and sometimes Word will stop
responding to keyboard input, both after the note reference has been
inserted and the note window has opened up for me to type in -- but I
can't -- and after I've finished typing it and closed the footnote
window. The cursor usually doesn't blink, but sometimes it does;
either way, the only way to make Word register my typing again is to
switch to another app and then back. And the active window still tends
to end up under an inactive window.
I would be extremely grateful for suggestions and advice!
